


My Life As A Mandator IV-class Siege Dreadnought Gunner

by MarkJira



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-02
Updated: 2018-01-02
Packaged: 2019-02-26 14:32:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 638
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13237725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MarkJira/pseuds/MarkJira
Summary: A day in the life of a point-defense cannon operator aboard the First Order Dreadnought Fulminatrix





	My Life As A Mandator IV-class Siege Dreadnought Gunner

**Author's Note:**

> This was an idea spawned by the stories contained in Star Wars: From A Certain Point of View. In this collection of vignettes, short stories, novellas, whatever you'd like to call them, we are given a lot of information as to what everyday life is like for members of the Imperial Navy. That, combined with insight from the novels Inferno Squad and Thrawn, paint a pretty clear picture of the day-to-day goings-on aboard an Imperial naval vessel.   
> Then, in The Last Jedi, we are introduced to the First Order Dreadnought, which seems to operate unlike anything we've seen in Star Wars before. I don't know a whole lot about life in the First Order, only what is presented in the Finn section of Before The Awakening, but I'm hoping Phasma, which I purchased the other day, will shed some light on that.  
> Rian Johnson said he wanted the Dreadnought to be a floating gun platform, likening it to the Yamato-class battleships used by the Japanese during WWII. So I did some research as to what life was like and how command was structured aboard a Yamato-class ship, but found nothing, so I am left to speculate. This is my best approximation of that.
> 
> So, without further ado, I present the clunkily titled My Life As A Mandator IV-class Siege Dreadnought Gunner.

I'm awakened by a klaxon.

 _Blast_ , I think,  _my one shift off for the next standard week and I don't even get to sleep_ _? Those Resistance bastards are going to pay for this_. But then I realize that this isn't the general alarm. It's less of a shrill whine and more of... I guess you'd call it a honk. Shipwide preparedness drill. Ordered, in all probability, by Captain Canady himself.

Moden Canady is a relic. Left over from the age of the Empire. A remnant from before the Emperor's contingency. Before our glorious Supreme Leader's rise to power, before Hux led the way for a new generation of military minds. He's still fighting a losing war. Still, he's an honorable man, and as loyal to the cause as anyone in the First Order. He probably deserves a command, and the _Fulminatrix_ , under his leadership, runs as smoothly as one could possibly ask for.

But at this moment I curse his name as I bolt upright.  _Old man is out to get me_ _._ But I have to be at my station by-- I check the chronometer on the wall-- oh-three-hundred, so I don't have any time to dwell on it. In the blink of an eye (maybe a Hutt eye, they don't blink too quickly) I'm zipping up the front of the insulated outer layer of my uniform and donning the ridiculous helmet, the design of which dates back to Canady's early days in the Empire. Then I'm out of my quarters and on my way to my post, half a damn kilometer away. I'm the operator of one twenty-six massive point-defense cannons on the hull of the _Fulminatrix_ , a Mandator IV-class Siege Dreadnought, one of only nine in the whole fleet. The thing is huge. A monument to the might of the First Order. I don't know who manufactures these things, but they outdid themselves with the Mandator IV. Like I said before, twenty-six point defense guns. They're these massive, anti-aircraft quadlasers on the dorsal hull. And on the ventral hull, two orbital autocannons. Capable of reducing surface targets or capital ships to flaming scrap in seconds. I would  _love_ to get the chance to fire those guns on the Resistance. But I've got to get to my post, and fast. It's oh-two-five-five, and I'm still in the turbolift. So I wait.

And wait.

And wait.

And the lift door hisses open. I have to force myself not to sprint to my post. But my pace is far brisker than usual. I make it to my post, inspect my instrumentation displays, and take a seat. That's when the klaxon stops and Captain Canady's stern mug appears on the viewscreen.

"Attention, crew of the  _Fulminatrix_. Our ultimate weapon, the Starkiller... it is no more. Walkers, fighters... Crew... Gone." The shock in the captain's voice is very apparent. I look around, and my crewmates are equally shocked. I guess it just hasn't quite registered with me yet. But Canady isn't finished.

"The Resistance attack that destroyed the Starkiller launched from the Ileenium system. The order to begin a counterattack is expected to be given at any moment. Be on alert. Canady out."

And that's that.

As soon as the transmission ends, the whispering starts.

"Ileenium? That's clear on the other side of the galaxy!"

"Starkiller? Destroyed? The Resistance hasn't got enough firepower to down  _this_ ship."

"Don't tempt fate, Lieutenant."

I'm settling in for a long day. Because whoever said the Ileenium system is a long way away is right. It's oh-three-oh-one now, and from our present location, on the edge of the Unknown Regions, our estimated arrival time would be thirteen-thirty. Ten and a half hours. And we are not to leave our posts in that time.

By the Supreme Leader, this is going to be a long shift.


End file.
